The Reaping
by GOLDRAGON08
Summary: Blood flows and suspicion rises in Konoha. Who can be trusted? Who can be sacrificed? And more importantly... who dies next? Character death, sex, blood and gore. Not for kids and not for the sensitive. Constructive criticism accepted but if you flame me i swear i will flame you right back. I posted as romance and horror but its also mystery. sasu/naru/sasu DISCONTINUED.


**CHAPTER 1**

Sasuke was tired. Yet the way he kept his shoulders back, steps even, and senses sharp you would never know it. He and his teammates had been meticulously searching the woods for three days and tossing and turning on the cold, damp ground for two nights. He had had the lion's share of long, hard missions, but sometimes it was the ones closest to home that were the most unbearable. No attacks had been made on them, no scrolls needed delivering, no comrades were endangered. It was merely a sweep and find. Some senile idiot had apparently gotten lost in the woods and after the families unsuccessful attempt to find him, the shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves were sent out to find him. Sasuke couldn't help but wonder when ninja had been reduced to such mediocrity. Trained practically since birth to eat, sleep and breathe the art of killing and infiltration, yet here they were out in the woods playing hide and seek with a wrinkled old fart who probably had a slow shutter speed on his anus. He heard others searching around him shouting out the old man's name.

Spring was in the air, cold and shivering; awakening from a past harsh winter. Thunder boomed overhead as mother nature cleared her throat and the cold breeze of her yawn brisked icily through his ink black hair. The Uchiha, always the realist, was certain the old man was probably dead. If he didn't have the sense to find his way home he probably didn't have the skill to survive exposure. In his mind they should be looking for a body instead of a survivor. But hey that was just his opinion.

He noticed a spot of amber in the trees and went toward it. He suddenly found himself in a sort of clearing. He trees in the this area were more sparse and not as substantial as the huge monoliths around them. If he had to guess he'd say that this area had been cleared at some point and nature had been recently attempting to reclaim it. Even the grass was a brighter and newer shade of green. Naruto was ahead facing away from him. The idiot was stock still, the crown of his head in Sasuke's line of sight as his gaze was directed slightly upward. Sasuke looked up to see what had his attention. Usually he liked being right. It was the natural order of things. He was a genius, a prodigy, an Uchiha for lack of a better word. But after coming face to face with this discomforting sight Sasuke wished that this was one of those rare times that he was wrong.

He was looking right at it. His mind was attempting to process what he was looking at and he could practically see the word ERROR blinking behind his eyes. It wasn't a crucifixion, not exactly. The body hadn't been nailed to the tree but rather…

Naruto's eyes were wide and his jaw slack in shock. Sasuke had seen that dumbfounded expression before but this time it mirrored his own. Other members of the search party appeared along the perimeter of the clearing and they just stared. There wasn't much that could surprise a ninja. They were taught to BE the element of surprise. But it doesn't get much more surprising than this.

The tree, which couldn't be more than thirteen feet tall, seemed to be growing _inside_ of the body. Kudzu vines encircled the naked corpse coiling like snakes around it and inside the hollowed out torso. The arms were stretched upward and appeared to be multi-jointed following the natural shape of two braches which V'ed out from the trunk. The skin was pulled taught against the bark and the bones seemed to have been removed to accommodate the branches even to the very tips of the fingers out of which bloomed beautiful magnolias, their petals spread in salutation to the morning sun. Between the arms, the head had been pulled back so the dead eyes faced the canopy.

At first sight Sasuke had been confused. The man, or what used to be a man, that he was currently looking at couldn't have been older than forty. But as he looked closer he saw that the odd way that the skin had been stretched around the tree pulled the man's skin closer to what was left of his bones including his skull. Incidentally he had gotten a post mortem face lift. What made it doubly creepy was that it made it look as if the old man was smiling. The sun filtered in through the leaves and the wind stirred the flower petals. It was beautiful in the most gruesome way. He rounded the tree to get a better look. From what he could tell, the man's spine and the dorsal side of his ribcage had been totally removed in order to fit him tightly to the branch. The kudzu vines had been used to hold him in place and it looked as if his skin had been intentionally sewn back. He was a human scarecrow. Yet the way he was positioned made him look like figurehead at the bow of a ship

A flutter near the body alerted him. Slowly rounding again to the front Sasuke carefully kneeled for a closer look. Inside the body where the guts used to be was a nest of newly hatched sparrows. His eyes drifted downward past the shriveled groin and the fully intact legs and noticed that the feet had been buried at the base of the tree like roots. His companions were all quiet. Even the blond idiot was lost for words. Coming out of her stupor, Sakura stepped forward and assessed the body obviously not knowing where to start. Her strawberry blond eyebrows were furrowed and her slack jaw quivered. It was obvious that this was beyond her medical skill. In fact, this was beyond anything that they had experienced. They had all seen sick things. The more morbid among them would swap stories of horror bragging about where they had been and what they'd done. Others chose to keep quiet and face their demons alone. Sasuke himself had endured living nightmares which should have been punishment enough for his betrayal.

But this…..

Well, that had surely been a fucked up morning. Rather than try to remove the body, which couldn't have been accomplished short of ripping it apart, those present had decided to just cut down the tree and take it back with old man Takeshi still wrapped around it. Dragging it back ten miles through the forest was one thing, protecting the commoners from the nightmarish sight was another. It was decided that they would park the tree/corpse within the tree line just out of sight and Naruto would go and get the Tsunade. Her reaction at first sight had been no different than anyone else's regardless of the fact that Naruto had more than likely given her a very vivid description of the situation. After taking a long moment to gape, Tsunade shook herself back to focus.

"Well… I will have to… have to notify the family that Mori-san has been found. I am declaring this entire mission classified. Until we are absolutely sure of what happened no one breathes a word of this. Was the area searched?" she asked Shikamaru.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Whoever is responsible for this, they were very thorough. Not a single track beside our own. We searched a two mile radius around the scene. Not even a drop of blood was spilled. It seems as if Mori-san has just… grown out of the tree itself." Shikamaru responded, his voice reflecting both confusion and fascination. Naruto, who had been deathly silent and morose through the whole ordeal perked up. He hesitated briefly before speaking.

"It's strange that we didn't find any of the old man's tracks, even on the way out there. We were searching blind from the jump. At first we had our doubts that he was even out there." he said.

"Right." Sasuke chimed in, "So it could mean that he didn't wander out at all. Hell he could have been killed before he even entered the woods."

"Alright, speculation isn't going to get us anywhere. We have to work with what we know." Tsunade said.

"Yeah, what little _that _is." Shikamaru groused, obviously upset at being stumped.

"Oh I don't know. I think that we know more than we think." Everyone turned to look at Sai who seemed to be thinking out loud. He gazed off away from them as if lost in thought. "Whoever did this appreciates beauty and is a perfectionist. Very meticulous. Very intelligent." he brought out one of his brushes and glided his fingers almost lovingly across the soft bristles. "Like an artist."

Sasuke noted the wistful smile on Sai's face and felt a flood of derision. He always hated that fucker. His wannabe replacement. Sasuke thought himself irreplaceable but Sai always did his damnedest to "replace" him.

"You seem to admire this sick fuck. No surprise there." he said dismissively. Sai glanced up at him in what Sasuke was positive was a mocking smile.

"A true artist appreciates all art. We may not like it so to speak, but we respect it for someone's creation." he explained tucking his paint brush behind his ear. Sasuke sneered and chose to remain silent. If Sai wanted to go into Hannibal Lecture mode then that was his own business.

"Enough. Kakashi, gather a team of ANBU. I want this handled with ultimate stealth. No sound and not even a shadow. Get the body off that damned tree and get it to the morgue. I don't care how you do it but be as gentle as possible. He's suffered enough."

"Yes. Hokage-sama. What will you tell the family?" "Hell if I know. I will work that out later. For now let's deal with the body. Everyone else, I want thorough reports on my desk as soon as possible. Document even the most minute detail you can remember. Shikamaru, Sai, I want both of you to think on this together. I have a feeling that we will need to look at this both logically and abstractly." As she handed out orders she stopped as her gaze fell to Naruto. He looked pale and on the verge of throwing up. Sasuke would guess that the initial shock had worn off and the events of the day were catching up with him. He had blatantly refused to touch the body in transport and bitched out anyone who handled it too rough in his eyes. "Naruto?"

"I had seen the old man in the village… just last week. He was sweeping his walk way. A little girl ran out… hugged him…she will never get to see her grandpa again." his voice was distant and soft. Sasuke stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his lover pressing a gentle kiss to his temple just this one time ignoring his discomfort with public displays of affection. Naruto always felt too deep. It amazed him how someone who lived with his heart on his sleeve could have ever become a ninja. Blood and pain had caused many sleepless nights for the blond especially if he had been the one responsible for it. He never cried, Naruto was anything but weak. But he would change. He would become withdrawn and silent. Sasuke would do what he could. The Uchiha wasn't a coddler, but he would be there. Naruto often excused his lacking consoling skills saying that his presence alone was enough. Sasuke could understand that. They had both been alone for so long, so lost for so long, so mistrusting.

"It's okay, Dobe. Let's go home, ok?" he whispered against blond hair.

**I will try not to put so many chapters into the story as I have with others. I realize that I lose interest very easily so I will try to squeeze as much as I can in each chapter, only stopping when I need to think of more. Reviews help. For those of you who have read any of my previous stories, let me know if my writing has improved. I'm trying.**

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